Aga Khan Palace & Gandhi’s Imprisonment: Part I - Non/Digital

Yesterday I visited the Aga Khan Palace in Pune, the place where M K Gandhi and his colleagues were kept after their early morning, surreptitious arrest by the British in 1942. The British apparently tried to keep the arrests under the wrap and spread a rumour that Mr. Gandhi went abroad. However, people soon found out where he was and anger spilled on the streets. The ‘Quit India’ movement, which was the primary reason for the arrests, gained even more momentum inspite of more arrests and brutal use of the police force by the colonisers. Gandhi and his colleagues were finally released in 1944, after about 21 months of imprisonment and the deaths of Mahadev Desai (the personal secretary of Mr. Gandhi) and Kasturba Gandhi.

There is a lot to that story, but much before that, I was greeted by a message pasted on the Ticket booths windows at the Aga Khan Palace. It read 'Only online ticket' in English, Hindi and Marathi. 

I noticed visitors standing and busy with their phones. Two men were sitting inside one of the ticket booths; and a guard at the entrance, who checked the ticket before one could enter the space.

I do not use digital payment apps or credit cards. So, I asked the two men inside the ticket booth if I could buy tickets with real money. The cost was just 20 Rupees per ticket. I was told that there is no other way except a digital transaction which includes Net-banking as well. While I would still have preferred paying the cash, I decided to use that to end the issue through Net banking and went through the Archaeological Survey of India’s (ASI) ticketing app. After filling in a variety of information and avoiding the non-mandatory fields I finally pressed the button to pay.

 

A few moments of processing later a message appeared:

“System Upgrade in Progress to Enhance Your Banking Experience. Service Unavailable until Saturday, 13th July, 4.30 PM.

We Apologize for the Inconvenience.”

 

I find it difficult to fathom the reasons that made ASI decide to go in for an online payment system. Is it not obvious that such a system prevents an entire Indian population who still do not have smart phones? And also those who may have a smart phone but may not always have an internet connection for various reasons, including its cost? As per the information issued by the I&B Ministry in 2022, only 600 million Indians (out of the 1.4 billion) owned a smart phone.  I could not find the data for 2024, but even we assume there are 700 or even 800 million smart phone users, it leaves out at the very least about 600 million Indian citizens.

 That basically amounts to putting a needless barrier for some. In other words it turns into a needless system of segregation and discrimination, even if that may not have been the intention.

Parvez

(Photo credit: Parvez)

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